The timing of the Afghan war. Official data on Soviet losses in Afghanistan

Military unit, division: 35690 "Kaskad-4" VIMPEL

Job title: frontier post heavy machine gun gunner.

Nationality: Russian.

Member Komsomol.

He graduated from the 8th grade of the Kozmyashinsky school in 1977.

Entered to study in GPTU-62, Chernushka for a car mechanic. Master of industrial training Baleev A.P.

Graduated GPTU-62 V1980

Qualification: mechanic for the operation of oil and gas equipment.

Date and place of death(fatal wound) 08/31/1982 when performing combat mission in Kandahar.

buried in with. RyabkiChernushinskydistrictPerm region

Awarded Diploma of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "To the Warrior-Internationalist" posthumously.

His name is entered in the Book of Memory of the employees of the Vympel special forces who died in the line of duty.

In April 1982, Vympel sent its Kaskad-4 personnel special unit of 128 people to Afghanistan with the task of assisting the DRA security agencies in identifying and suppressing the subversive activities of the counter-revolutionary underground, gangs and terrorist groups, i.e. carrying out intelligence activities, operational-search and special operations in full.In April 1983, Cascade-4 was replaced by another division of Vympel - the Omega group. An example of solving the assigned tasks is the operation of the special forces "Cascade-4" to repel an attempt by a large detachment of Mujahideen to seize the city of Kandahar.

Not far from Kandahar, a major military operation was carried out to destroy gangs of dushmans. In the afternoon, large forces of the Mujahideen suddenly broke into the city. Sweeping away the small posts of the Afghan army in their path, they advanced towards the city center, trying to capture the governor and other representatives of the administration. Several dozen employees of one of the groups of the Cascade-4 detachment, who were in Kandahar, were thrown to hold off the attack. And only thanks to the coordinated actions of Vympel, the dushmans were stopped and partially destroyed.

Valentin Yutov, a former employee of Vympel, recalls:

“June 7, 1982, a large detachment of dushmans tried to seize the administrative center of Kandahar. The Soviet and Afghan military units were far away from him, and the Kaskada-4 team turned out to be the closest combat unit to the scene. "Stuntmen" acted swiftly, decisively and competently. Using armored vehicles and spetsnaz's ability to fight in the city, they managed to push the vastly outnumbered enemy to the outskirts and continued to push him until reinforcements arrived. As the Afghan leadership later noted, "the seizure of administrative buildings, the liquidation of party activists and people's authorities was prevented." The results of the battle: enemy losses - 45 killed and 26 wounded, our losses - one dead (Private Yuri Tarasov) and 12 wounded.

And on August 31, 1982, in the same Kandahar, a fighter of the Cascade-4 detachment, Corporal Andrey Votintsev, died.

Another time will come, and the commander of "Cascade-4" E. A. Savintsev, having retired, will tell:

- Before our next business trip to Afghanistan, one high-ranking chief punished me: “You are given a large officer clip, which is easy to shoot, but difficult to maintain ...”

On May 15, 1988, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan began. The operation was led by the last commander of the limited contingent, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov. Soviet troops have been in the country since December 25, 1979; they acted on the side of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

The decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan was made on December 12, 1979 at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and formalized by a secret decree of the CPSU Central Committee. The official purpose of the entry was to prevent the threat of foreign military intervention. As a formal basis, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU used the repeated requests of the leadership of Afghanistan.

A limited contingent of Soviet troops (OKSV) was directly involved in the civil war that was flaring up in Afghanistan and became an active participant in it.

The armed forces of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) on the one hand and the armed opposition (mujahideen, or dushmans) on the other took part in the conflict. The struggle was for complete political control over the territory of Afghanistan. Dushmans during the conflict were supported by military specialists from the United States, a number of European NATO member countries, as well as Pakistani intelligence services.
December 25, 1979 the entry of Soviet troops into the DRA began in three directions: Kushka-Shindand-Kandahar, Termez-Kunduz-Kabul, Khorog-Faizabad. The troops landed at the airfields of Kabul, Bagram, Kandahar.

The Soviet contingent included: the 40th Army Directorate with support and maintenance units, four divisions, five separate brigades, four separate regiments, four combat aviation regiments, three helicopter regiments, one pipeline brigade, one material support brigade and some other units and institutions.

The stay of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and their combat activities are conditionally divided into four stages.

1st stage: December 1979 - February 1980 The entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, their placement in garrisons, the organization of the protection of deployment points and various objects.

2nd stage: March 1980 - April 1985 Conducting active hostilities, including large-scale ones, together with Afghan formations and units. Work on the reorganization and strengthening of the armed forces of the DRA.

3rd stage: May 1985 - December 1986 The transition from active hostilities mainly to supporting the actions of the Afghan troops with Soviet aviation, artillery and sapper units. Special forces units fought to prevent the delivery of weapons and ammunition from abroad. The withdrawal of 6 Soviet regiments to their homeland took place.

4th stage: January 1987 - February 1989 Participation of Soviet troops in the Afghan leadership's policy of national reconciliation. Continued support for the combat activities of Afghan troops. Preparation of Soviet troops for their return to their homeland and the implementation of their complete withdrawal.

On April 14, 1988, with the mediation of the UN in Switzerland, the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Agreements on a political settlement of the situation around the situation in the DRA. The Soviet Union undertook to withdraw its contingent within 9 months, starting from May 15; The US and Pakistan, for their part, had to stop supporting the Mujahideen.

In accordance with the agreements, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan began on May 15, 1988. On February 15, 1989, Soviet troops were completely withdrawn from Afghanistan. The withdrawal of the troops of the 40th Army was led by the last commander of the limited contingent, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov.

Losses of personnel according to official data. From the reference of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR: “In total, 546,255 people passed through Afghanistan. Losses of personnel of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in the Republic of Afghanistan in the period from December 25, 1979 to February 15, 1989. A total of 13,833 people were killed, died from wounds and diseases, including 1,979 officers (14.3%). A total of 49,985 people were injured, including 7,132 officers (14.3%). 6669 people became disabled. 330 people are on the wanted list.”

Awards. More than 200 thousand people were awarded orders and medals of the USSR, 71 of them became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Afghan figures. Another reference published in the Izvestiya newspaper provides a report by the Afghan government "on the losses of government troops - for 5 months of fighting from January 20 to June 21, 1989: 1748 soldiers and officers were killed and 3483 were wounded." Recalculating losses for one year from a 5-month period, we get that approximately 4196 people could be killed and 8360 wounded. Considering that in Kabul, both in the Ministry of Defense and in other government bodies, Soviet advisers controlled any information, especially from the front, it is quite obvious that the numbers of losses of Afghan military personnel indicated in the newspaper are not only clearly underestimated, but also the ratio between the wounded and the dead. Nevertheless, even these fake figures can roughly determine the actual losses of Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

13 people daily! If we assume that the military operations of the Mujahideen against the Soviet troops in the same areas were carried out with even greater bitterness and intensity, as against "gentiles and invaders", then we can roughly assume that our losses for the year were equal to at least 5 thousand killed - 13 people a day . The number of wounded is determined from the ratio of losses according to the certificate of our Ministry of Defense 1:3.6, therefore, their number will be about 180 thousand over ten years of war.

Permanent contingent. The question is, how many Soviet troops took part in the Afghan war? We learn from fragmentary information from our Ministry of Defense that there were 180 military camps in Afghanistan and 788 battalion commanders took part in the hostilities. We believe that the average battalion commander lived in Afghanistan for 2 years. This means that during the 10 years of the war the number of battalion commanders was updated 5 times. Consequently, in Afghanistan there were constantly about 788:5 annually - 157 combat battalions. The number of military camps and the number of battalions agree fairly closely with each other.

Assuming that at least 500 people served in the combat battalion, we get that there were 157 * 500 = 78500 people in the active 40th Army. For the normal functioning of the troops fighting the enemy, auxiliary units of the rear are necessary (delivery of ammunition, fuel and lubricants, repair and technical workshops, guarding caravans, guarding roads, guarding military camps, battalions, regiments, divisions, armies, hospitals, etc. .). The ratio of the number of auxiliary units to combat units is approximately 3:1 - this is approximately 235,500 military personnel. Thus, the total number of military personnel who were constantly in Afghanistan every year was at least 314 thousand people.

General numbers. So, during the 10 years of the war in Afghanistan, at least three million people passed, of which 800 thousand participated in hostilities. Our total losses amounted to at least 460 thousand people, of which 50 thousand were killed, 180 thousand were wounded, including 100 thousand who were blown up by mines - seriously wounded, 1000 were missing, 230 thousand were sick with hepatitis, jaundice, typhoid fever.

It turns out that in the official data the terrible figures are underestimated by about 10 times.

About the author: Nikita Mendkovich is an expert at the Center for the Study of Modern Afghanistan (CISA).

The problems of armed confrontation in Afghanistan are still actively discussed in the scientific literature. In particular, losses in the armed confrontation involving Soviet troops from December 25, 1979 to February 15, 1989 are still a subject of discussion. The following text is an attempt to review estimates of existing data on the losses of the parties to the conflict.

To begin with, it can be stated that the statistics of the losses of Soviet troops fighting on the side of the Kabul government are somewhat better. The level of initial accounting for losses was quite high: this was facilitated by the order in the armed forces of the USSR, the norms for accounting for the movement and loss of personnel. In addition, despite the political changes that have affected the post-Soviet space, the level of preservation of military archives is relatively good, which allowed specialists from the Ministry of Defense to accurately assess the losses of the past war.

In total, 620,000 military personnel, including 525,500 soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army, 21,000 civil servants, 95,000 representatives of the KGB (including border troops), internal troops and militia, completed military service in the troops stationed in Afghanistan during the period.

The total number of deaths during the period of more than nine years of military presence amounted to 15,051 people, of which 14,427 members of the armed forces, who died as a result of combat wounds, as well as from accidents and diseases. The percentage of combat losses is 82.5%. The number of irretrievable combat and non-combat losses includes both those who died in hospitals and those who died from the consequences of illnesses after their dismissal from the armed forces. Therefore, apparently, these data on the dead are almost complete, and the higher estimates found in Western literature should be disregarded: the statistics presented here do not include only people who died before being discharged from the army while being treated in hospitals outside the territory of the DRA.

The statistics of irretrievable losses also do not include 417 people who went missing or were captured during the hostilities. As of 1999, 287 people had not been returned to their homeland.

Significant harm to the Soviet group was also caused by the so-called. sanitary losses, including persons who dropped out of the war for health reasons. They include both the wounded during the period of hostilities and those who fell ill for reasons not related to wounds and concussions. For the Afghan war, the level of losses associated with "non-combat" factors was extremely high: they accounted for 89% of sanitary losses.

According to American researchers in the 1990s, 56.6% of non-combat losses were due to infectious diseases, 15.1% to domestic injuries, 9.9% to dermatological diseases, and 4.1% to lung diseases. According to Grau and Jorgensen, throughout the war, up to 1/4 of the personnel of the Soviet Army grouping was unfit for combat. As the authors write: “In October-December 1981, the entire 5th motorized rifle division became incapacitated when more than 3 thousand people fell ill with hepatitis at the same time.” Apparently, the high incidence is associated with a lack of clean drinking water, interruptions in the supply of new clothes, which created problems with washing uniforms, atypical for European Russia, where most of the fighters came from, infectious diseases. Due to the radical climate change, almost all the fighters who arrived in the country after a certain time developed symptoms of indigestion. There were frequent cases of dysentery, hepatitis and typhoid fever.

In total, during the presence of the armed forces in the country, 466,000 servicemen sought medical help. Of these, due to illness, 11,284 people were dismissed from the armed forces, of which 10,751 people received a disability.

The highest irretrievable losses of the Soviet Army refer to the period from March 1980 to April 1985. It is to this time that the highest average monthly irretrievable losses also belong. The highest average monthly sanitary losses (and, apparently, the peak of morbidity) refer to May 1985 - December 1986.

The situation with the losses of the DRA armed forces, anti-government armed formations and civilians is more complicated. The losses of the armed forces subordinate to Kabul are known according to A.A. Lyakhovsky and amounted from 1979 to 1988: 26,595 people - irretrievable combat losses, 28,002 - missing, 285,541 - deserters. The abnormally high level of desertion is reflected in many memoirs and is explained by the chaotic mobilization policy of the DRA government and the low level of ideological work among the personnel. The peak of combat irretrievable losses occurred in 1981, when the Afghan armed forces lost 6,721 people killed. The peaks of losses from desertion (more than 30 thousand people a year) occurred in 1982 and 1988.

On the one hand, this level of losses is much higher than that of the Soviet side, which indicates a greater involvement in hostilities, but it is important to take into account the difference in technical equipment and the quantity and quality of work of medical personnel, which led to large lethal losses.

With regard to the losses of "mujahideen" and the civilian population, the situation is even more complicated. Accurate statistics are almost non-existent. During the period from 1980 to 1990, the UN registered 640,000 deaths of the inhabitants of Afghanistan, of which 327,000 people were accounted for by the male population of the country. However, these data are obviously incomplete and can only be considered the lower limit of population losses.

First of all, the question of the number of opposition detachments is confused. The most common estimate in the literature is from 20 to 50 thousand people of a permanent composition, and 70-350 thousand people who participated in their activities on an irregular basis. Crile's assessment seems to be the most substantiated, citing the memoirs of CIA officers, who claimed that the United States financed detachments of approximately 150,000 fighters out of 400,000 operating in the country.

How many of them died? The author did not find any reliable estimates in the literature on military history. Their appearance seems unlikely, if only because of the problems of identifying the affiliation of "irregular Mujahideen", documenting the current losses of individual detachments and centralized accounting of these data, which was hardly carried out at all during the war.

Apparently, the losses of the opposition detachments can only be taken into account in the total mass of the population, the estimates of the losses of which vary greatly. So, as of 1987, in Afghanistan, according to USAID, 875 thousand people died, according to the Gallup study - 1.2 million people. The highest estimate of the total irretrievable losses of the population found in the literature is 1.5-2 million people, but the author considers them too high. The number of refugees is traditionally estimated at 5.7 million people in 1987 and 6.2 million in 1990 in Pakistan, Iran and some other states. However, it is important to note that a significant part of the persons registered as "refugees" were Afghan migrant workers who sought to legalize themselves abroad in this way and hoped to receive humanitarian assistance. Their numbers were also large in the pre-war period, so in the early 1970s, up to 1 million people left Afghanistan in search of work. Therefore, it is not easy to estimate the real percentage of those who were forced to leave Afghanistan during the war.

The given data on the number of parties and losses in the 1979-1989 conflict may be incomplete, however, in the author's opinion, they are at least well-reasoned, in contrast to a number of clearly overestimated estimates that are used in political speculations around the history of this war.

Of course, any military losses, especially those of the irresponsible participants in the conflict, and the population living in the territory where it unfolded, are terrible and cannot be justified from the point of view of simple ethics, and the war itself cannot be justified as the most terrible manifestation of human violence against man. However, as can be seen from today's events, the level of development of society and international relations still does not exclude the use of this tool to resolve contradictions between states. And that means new losses and new human tragedies.

1. Hereinafter, the statistics of Soviet losses are given according to: Russia in the wars of the 20th century. Losses of the armed forces. Under the general editorship of G. F. Krivosheev. Moscow: Olma-Press, 2001.
2. Message from the professor of the Department of Thermal Injuries of the Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg Vladimir Sidelnikov // RIA Novosti, February 15, 2007.
3. L. W. Grau, W. A. ​​Jorgensen Medical support in counter-guerrilla war: epidemiologic lesson learned in Soviet-Afghan war
4. A. A. Lyakhovsky The tragedy and valor of Afghanistan
5. United Nations Statistics Division
6. J. B. Amstutz Afghanistan. The first five ears of soviet occupation. Washington D.C., 1986. P. 155-156.
7. D. Crile Charlie Wilson's War. Translation from English by K. Saveliev. M., 2008. S. 205.
8. D. C. Isby War in a Distant Country: Afghanistan, Invasion and Resistance. London, 1989.
9. M. F. Slinkin Afghanistan: pages of history (80-90s of the XX century). Simferopol, 2003. S. 119-120.

Twenty-six years have already passed since the last Soviet soldier left the territory of Afghanistan. But many participants in those long-standing events have left a spiritual wound that still aches and hurts. How many of our Soviet children, still very young boys, died in the Afghan war! How many mothers shed tears at zinc coffins! How much blood of innocent people has been shed! And all human grief lies in one small word - "war" ...

How many people died in the Afghan war?

According to official data, about 15 thousand Soviet soldiers did not return home to the USSR from Afghanistan. So far, 273 people are listed as missing. More than 53 thousand soldiers were wounded and shell-shocked. The losses in the Afghan war for our country are colossal. Many veterans believe that the Soviet leadership made a big mistake by getting involved in this conflict. How many lives could have been saved if their decision had been different.

Until now, disputes have not ceased on the topic of how many people died in the Afghan war. After all, the official figure does not take into account the pilots who died in the sky, who were transporting cargo, soldiers returning home and came under fire, nurses and nurses who cared for the wounded.

Afghan war 1979-1989

On December 12, 1979, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was decided to send Russian troops to Afghanistan. They were located on the territory of the country since December 25, 1979 and were supporters of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Troops were brought in to prevent the threat of military intervention from other states. The decision to help Afghanistan from the USSR was made after numerous requests from the leadership of the republic.

The conflict broke out between the opposition (dushmans, or Mujahideen) and the armed forces of the government of Afghanistan. The parties could not share political control over the territory of the republic. A number of European countries, Pakistani intelligence services and the US military provided support to the Mujahideen during the hostilities. They also provided them with the supply of ammunition.

The entry of Soviet troops was carried out in three directions: Khorog - Faizabad, Kushka - Shindad - Kandahar and Termez - Kunduz - Kabul. The airfields of Kandahar, Bagram and Kabul received Russian troops.

Main stages of the war

On December 12, after coordinating his actions with the commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Brezhnev decided to provide military assistance to Afghanistan. On December 25, 1979, at 15:00 Moscow time, the entry of our troops into the republic began. It should be noted that the role of the USSR in the Afghan war is enormous, since Soviet units provided all possible support to the Afghan army.

The main reasons for the failures of the Russian army

At the beginning of the war, luck was on the side of the Soviet troops, proof of this is the operation in Panjshir. The main misfortune for our units was the moment when Stinger missiles were delivered to the Mujahideen, which easily hit the target from a considerable distance. The Soviet military did not have the equipment capable of hitting these missiles in flight. As a result of the use of the Stinger by the Mujahideen, several of our military and transport aircraft were shot down. The situation changed only when the Russian army managed to get a few missiles in their hands.

Change of power

In March 1985, power in the USSR changed, the post of president passed to M. S. Gorbachev. His appointment significantly changed the situation in Afghanistan. The question immediately arose of the Soviet troops leaving the country in the near future, and some steps were even taken to implement this.

A change of power also took place in Afghanistan: B. Karmal was replaced by M. Najibullah. The gradual withdrawal of Soviet units began. But even after that, the struggle between the Republicans and Islamists did not stop and continues to this day. However, for the USSR, the history of the Afghan war ended there.

The main reasons for the outbreak of hostilities in Afghanistan

The situation in Afghanistan has never been considered calm due to the fact that the republic is located in a geopolitical region. The main rivals who wanted to have influence in this country were at one time the Russian Empire and Great Britain. In 1919, the Afghan authorities declared independence from England. Russia, in turn, was one of the first to recognize the new country.

In 1978, Afghanistan received the status of a democratic republic, after which new reforms followed, but not everyone wanted to accept them. This is how the conflict between the Islamists and the Republicans developed, which as a result led to a civil war. When the leadership of the republic realized that they could not cope on their own, they began to ask for help from their ally - the USSR. After some hesitation, the Soviet Union decided to send its troops to Afghanistan.

Book of Memory

Farther and farther away from us is the day when the last units of the USSR left the lands of Afghanistan. This war left a deep, indelible mark, covered in blood, in the history of our country. Thousands of young people who had not yet had time to see the life of the guys did not return home. How scary and painful to remember. What were all these sacrifices for?

Hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers went through serious trials in this war, and not only did not break, but also showed such qualities as courage, heroism, devotion and love for the Motherland. Their fighting spirit was unshakable, and they went through this cruel war with dignity. Many were wounded and treated in military hospitals, but the main wounds that remained in the soul and are still bleeding cannot be cured by even the most experienced doctor. Before the eyes of these people, their comrades bled and died, dying a painful death from wounds. The Afghan soldiers have only the eternal memory of their dead friends.

The Book of Memory of the Afghan War has been created in Russia. It immortalizes the names of the heroes who fell on the territory of the republic. In each region there are separate Books of Memory of the soldiers who served in Afghanistan, in which the names of the heroes who died in the Afghan war are entered by name. The pictures from which young handsome guys look at us make the heart shrink from pain. After all, none of these boys are already alive. “In vain, the old woman is waiting for her son to go home ...”, - these words have been etched into the memory of every Russian since the Second World War and make the heart shrink. So let the eternal memory of the heroes of the Afghan war remain, which will be refreshed by these truly sacred Books of Memory.

The outcome of the Afghan war for the people is not the result that the state has achieved to resolve the conflict, but the number of human casualties, which is in the thousands.